Jean Etienne Championnet

Jean Etienne Championnet (13 April 1762-9 January 1800) was a General of the French First Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was known for his Jacobin sympathies, and he commanded French forces in Italy from 1799 to 1800.

Biography
Jean Etienne Championnet was born in in Alixan, France on 13 April 1762, and he enlisted in the French Army at a young age. He served at Gibraltar during the American Revolutionary War, and he was elected a battalion commander of the French Revolutionary Army during the French Revolutionary Wars. Championnet commanded a brigade under Jean-Charles Pichegru during the Rhine campaign, and he would be credited for helping Jean-Baptiste Jourdan win the Battle of Fleurus due to his great leadership skills. In 1798, he took command of the Armee d'Italie, and he captured Naples and set up the Parthenopaean Republic in the place of the Kingdom of Naples. Due to the tense political situation in France, he was imprisoned a few times, but he returned to command the army in 1799 after Barthelemy Catherine Joubert was killed at the Battle of Novi. The campaign that followed was unsuccessful, and he died of typhus at Antibes.